Low solvent consumption gel permeation chromatography method

This study presents the possibility of reducing the volume of solvent necessary for gel permeation chromatography analysis by up to 20 times when using two 2.1-mm internal diameter (ID) columns instead of the traditional three 7.5-mm ID columns. The low solvent consumption method was optimized by evaluating the number of theoretical plates at different flow rates. By injecting a broad polystyrene standard 16 times, good reproducibility and accuracy of weight average molecular weights (M_w) and peak surface areas were obtained for the optimized method.